You are not here to acquire skills but to eradicate blocks. – Jerzy Grotowski

It is your music, dance, or theatre teacher’s job to help you acquire the skills you need to be a fine artist. My job is to help you become aware of how you interfere with yourself as you work toward acquiring those skills, and to show you how you can release that interference. In other words, my job is to teach you how not to work against yourself and against what you are working to achieve.

Often the problem is not that we doing to little, but that we are doing too much, working too hard, over trying, muscling our way through.

“Fluid as melting ice. Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself? Less and less will you need to force things.”

-Lao Tzu/Stephen Mitchell

In this workshop we will learn how to become less stiff and more fluid. We will learn how not to push, not to force. Through Alexander’s work we will begin learning how to be at once, relaxed and ready, soft and strong, light and substantial, stable and flexible, peaceful and lively when we are practicing and when we are performing.

This workshop is open to amateur and professional artists alike. Bring what you need in order to do your work, your instruments, your dancing shoes, your monologues. Also, those who do not consider themselves artists but whose jobs entail an element of performance, such as public speaking, lecturing, leading meetings are also welcome to attend.

Details:

When:

May 8, 10-13h/14-17h(May 7 – private lessons)

Where:

LaLuzCarreé Seestraße Oudenarder Str. 16Im Backstage Studio

Parklatze im Hof

Cost:

About Bruce Fertman

In Bruce’s class you feel as if you are sitting by a deep, soft lake. His pace and patience, his quiet confidence allows people to unfold and open layer by layer. The superfluous falls away leaving only life’s inner vitality effortlessly expressing itself through you.

He is the embodiment of his work. His touch is like a butterfly settling down on the very turning point of your soul. And then you know, “That’s who I am, that is who I could be.”

M. Tueshaus, Alexander Teacher / Tango Teacher/ Equestrian

With 55 years experience as a movement artist and educator, Bruce brings a lifetime of training to his work as an Alexander teacher. For the past 30 years Bruce has traveled annually throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States coaching performing artists and helping people from all walks of life.

Bruce has worked with members of the Berlin Philharmonic, Radio France, The National Symphony in Washington DC, the Honolulu Symphony and for the Curtis Institute of Music. He taught for the Five College Dance Program in Amherst, Massachusetts for 13 years, and for the Tango community in Buenos Aires. For 6 years, he taught movement for actors at Temple and Rutgers University.

In 1982, Bruce co-founded the Alexander Alliance International, an intergenerational, multicultural community/school, the first Alexander teacher training program inspired by the work of Marjorie Barstow.

For ten years Bruce trained as a gymnast with Olympic coaches, and with Dan Millman, receiving a full scholarship to Penn State University. A professional modern dancer for 12 years, he holds a Master’s degree in Modern Dance and Movement Re-education at Temple University. For 16 years Bruce apprenticed with and assisted Marjorie L. Barstow, the first person formally certified by F.M. Alexander to teach his work.

Bruce studied in New York City at the Shr Jung Institute and in Philadelphia with Cheng man Ching’s six senior American students for 8 years, and also for 8 years with Shuji Maruyama who, as a boy, lived and trained with Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido. Bruce was awarded a scholarship to study at the Uresenke School of Tea in Kyoto, Japan, with Iemoto Soshitsu Sen, the 15th generation grand tea master. He studied Argentine Tango in Buenos Aires, Berlin, and Rome. Bruce trained in Kyudo, Zen Archery, in Osaka, Japan where he lives four months a year. Four months a year he is on the road teaching in Europe and Asia, and four months a year Bruce lives in Northern, New Mexico and writes.